Taxonomic status of Cyanoramphus parakeets on the Auckland Islands and implications for the validity of the orange-fronted parakeet as a discrete species

Abstract

Cyanoramphus parakeets are a key biogeographic element of the Pacific. Many of these parakeets are, however, endangered, with ongoing conservation management hampered by the unresolved taxonomic status of some populations. We used modern and ancient DNA (mitochondrial DNA control region) to assess the taxonomy of the Auckland Islands populations of red-crowned (Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae novaezelandiae) and yellow-crowned (Cyanoramphus auriceps) parakeets. Our analyses show that both red-crowned and yellow-crowned parakeets on the Auckland Islands are nested within the mainland New Zealand diversity of the two species. However, we also found an orange-fronted parakeet (Cyanoramphus malherbi) mitochondrial DNA lineage within the genome of both of these species in the Auckland Islands population. Further sampling of historic orange-fronted parakeet museum skins showed that the orange-fronted morphotype is paraphyletic with respect to mitochondrial haplotype, which is probably caused by hybridisation or incomplete lineage sorting. In light of this, we review and critically assess the taxonomic history of the orange-fronted parakeet, and address whether the species was historically present on the Auckland Islands.

Keywords:

• Auckland Islands
• Cyanoramphus auriceps
• Cyanoramphus malherbi
• Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae
• hybridisation
• incomplete lineage sorting
• orange-fronted
• parakeet
• red-crowned
• yellow-crowned

Acknowledgements

We thank the following people and institutions for assistance sourcing and supplying samples for genetic analysis: Auckland Museum (Brian Gill), Canterbury Museum, Graeme Elliott (DoC), Kath Walker (DoC), Metz Museum (Francoise Clemang), Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (JA [Sandy] Bartle, Gillian Stone), and Otago Museum (Sue Heath, Ilka Soehle). We also thank Elodie Urlacher (University of Otago) and Jean-Claude Stahl (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) for assistance with French translation; Jamie Wood (Landcare Research) for help with phylogenetic analyses; and Sandy Bartle for helpful discussion and obtaining a sample of the Metz Museum orange-fronted parakeet syntype. Photographs of the Metz Museum syntype were provided by Francoise Clemang, Laurianne Kieffer and Sandy Bartle; and the Paris syntype by Eric Pasquet.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

RP Scofield http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7510-6980

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by DoC, Heritage Expeditions Enderby Trust and Victoria University of Wellington (including alumnus scholar support for GKC).